The Patent Watch: Pooling Gene Patents

February 1, 2001

Page Summary

The United States Patent & Trade Mark Office commissioned a White Paper on patent pooling, which was released in January 2001. A "patent pool" is an agreement between two or more patent owners to license their patents to one another or to other parties. The White Paper encourages the formation of patent pools for biotechnology patents, and postulates that a reduction in the problem of "blocking" patents would result. This article lists patents and published applications which illustrate some of the advances attributable to Canadians in technological fields relating to gene sequences and disease-related mutations. This article was published in the February/March 2001 edition of BIOTECH Magazine.

Advanced Search

Archive

The United States Patent & Trade Mark Office commissioned a White Paper on patent pooling, which was released in January 2001. A "patent pool" is an agreement between two or more patent owners to license their patents to one another or to other parties. The White Paper encourages the formation of patent pools for biotechnology patents, and postulates that a reduction in the problem of "blocking" patents would result. This article lists patents and published applications which illustrate some of the advances attributable to Canadians in technological fields relating to gene sequences and disease-related mutations. This article was published in the February/March 2001 edition of BIOTECH Magazine.